In Which You Spend 3 Vacation Days Waiting For The Verizon Guy Who Never Comes

Sounds like that Verizon guy is too busy making commercials to show up and install your DSL. Reader John-Paul just wants Verizon to keep their appointments… is that so much to ask?

John-Paul says he tried to send the following email to some Verizon executives but they’ve apparently changed their email addresses, so he sent it to us instead:

To All Those Concerned:

I am writing you a letter to bring to you’re a problem I had with the DSL division of Verizon. I use to live in a little apartment in Long Beach. We called and purchased your DSL package. Over the course of the next few days we received the box and the DSL was set up. The DSL worked fine for over 6 months. We have no problems and anytime I called Verizon I was treated wonderfully.

Fast forward a few months and we are ready to move into a new apartment. I call Verizon and let them know we are moving. They let me know that someone will come out on December 9, 2008 and that someone might need to be home but I will be contacted via cell phone. I was never contacted and after waiting all day I finally called Verizon to find out what happened. According to the Verizon rep I spoke with, an appointment was never made and I had effectively wasted a day off work to get nothing done.

I am upset but everyone makes mistakes. I call and reschedule a new appointment. This time I am told on the 22nd of December that someone will come out and set up my DSL. I take the day off work and anxiously await the Verizon rep. No one shows up. I call at about 11:30AM. I was hoping that if there was a problem I could get it cleared up early in the day. I am told a second time that the system has no record of any appointment made.

I schedule another appointment on the 26th of December. I got up early so as to not miss the DSL installation. I wait until 10:00 AM and call. After being put on hold and waiting for over 2 hours on the phone I am finally told for a third time that no one was scheduled to come out and install DSL. I understand businesses make mistakes and no one is perfect. I also understand that sometimes I need to contact the highest form of management to get any kind of solutions. I have since terminated my account and no one at Verizon has done anything to even attempt to rectify the situation. This has cost me 3 vacation days as well as over 6 hours total time spent on the phone trying to get information from Verizon. Please let me know if there is anything your company can do to help rectify this situation. Thank you for your time.

Maybe our commenters can recommend a new ISP for John-Paul?

John-Paul has written in and provided the following answers to your pressing questions:

I called and confirmed the day before each appointment.

I took down the information of the people I spoke to at Verizon every time.

I had to purchase a modem that was about $75.00 with no chance of refund

Every time I had an appointment set up and I called on the day it was
scheduled the information magically disappeared.

When I asked the Verizon Rep what the confirmation numbers where used
for I was laughed at.

The only thing offered to me was the reschedule.

I escalated every time but after 4 hours on the phone I had to call it quits.